A blog fueled by enthusiasm about Saab, the greatest car company between the North and the South Pole. And their cars, which probably is the only cars that would start on a cold and crispy South Pole morning.

IMPORTANT NEWS: National Electric Vehicle Sweden has agreed to buy the assets of Saab Automobile and the sale is expected to be finalized during the summer.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Turkish Brightwell says GM will be positive to a deal

Updated with more info from Dagens Industri

Last week it was revealed that the Turkish company interested in buying Saab or parts of Saab is Brightwell Holdings. Now Swedish TTELA has had a talk with Zamier Ahmed, who is member of the board of Brightwell.

Zamier Ahmed told TTELA that more than six months on behalf of Brightwell Holdings he has followed the Saab saga. The reason is that the environmental interested company would like to get hold of the Saab brand name and Saab's advanced technology.

"The potential of the technology from an environmental perspective matches our policy very well," said Ahmed to TTELA.

At the moment Brightwell is waiting to hear from the bankruptcy administrators as to when a meeting can take place. Then Brightwell hopes to find out exactly how much of Saab the administrators want to keep in Trollhättan and also exactly what is up for sale.

"We're interested in all of Saab, not just small parts like the brand name. We understand fully the Saab brand's heritage, the history of the company and the high quality of the products," Ahmed told Dagens Industri.

Ahmed said that they want to keep production in Trollhättan, but could not say to what degree.

"We definitely want to keep production in Trollhättan, but we need to look at exactly how much. But we will not rule out that all will be kept there," Ahmed continued.

"We need more knowledge about the structure of the company before we can answer that [how much of the production that will be kept in Trollhättan]. We may need to produce some parts of the products on other locations to save costs."

Brightwell has during the past six months been in contact with Victor Muller, with the hope of taking a share or acquiring Saab, but Muller chose the Chinese investors.

"I've also been in contact with GM during this process and they have been very positive to us. Our government also supports this fully. We believe that Saab can survive and with the right leadership have a bright future."

Brightwell has previous experience from the automotive industry when they in 2010 acquired a European electric car, and ongoing negotiations with an American car manufacturer.

"I can not mention their names yet."

A quick Google search revealed that Brightwell is very much involved in environmental investments. According to their homepage, they have invested in SynergEthic SA, which develops a two-seater electric vehicle of small width, providing a pragmatic and innovative answer to traffic issues in urban areas. Furthermore, according to Olecars, Brightwell in November last year signed a declaration of intent to invest in the French company Heuliez Electric with the intent to build a future hybrid car or electric field through the expertise of Heuliez. Brightwell is also part owner of Turkish GreenWay solar energy company.